FROM CALIFORNIA. 25 



spikes radiating from a vertical shaft. The disks especially are finely 

 polished and exquisitely finished, and, as they appear to be made of 

 very hard stone, their manufacture must have required great skill and 

 long labor. 



The keen edge on the last variety and the pointed knobs of the star 

 shaped pattern certainly suggest that either kind is capable of inflict- 

 ing a murderous blow, and their suggestive appearance is doubtless the 

 chief reason for their classification as clubheads. 



To derive a correct idea of their probable use, however, we must 

 scrutinize not only the stones, but the shafts upon which they are 

 mounted, and an examination of the specimens in the National Museum 

 sufficiently proves that they cannot have been intended as weapons. 

 The staves are too long and much too slender to serve as club handles. 

 Instead of being roughened or knobbed to enable them to be firmly 

 grasped, as is the case with war clubs generally, the handles are smooth 

 and taper gradually, terminating in a sharp point, like the digging 

 stick. Nothing could well be less suited for the handle of a club than 

 one of these staves. Moreover, examination of the pointed ends shows 

 by the wear and the scratched surfaces that they have been stuck re- 

 peatedly into the earth, which latter circumstance might of itself sug- 

 gest the digging stick. However, the decorated tops and the general 

 character of these specimens would appear to be sufficient proof that 

 their function could not have been that of digging sticks. They doubt- 

 less were. just what D'Albertis calls them, marks of authority or staves 

 of office belonging to chiefs. Such staves as are here figured seem to 

 be rather common in collections from New Guinea, and they appear to 

 have been classed usually as weapons, notwithstanding their orna- 

 mental appearance and the very unweaponlike character of their han- 

 dles. Thus Evans 1 refers to two such specimens in the Christy collec- 

 tion, staling that they "are in use, probably as weapons, in the south- 

 ern part of New Guinea and in Torres Straits."' 



Professor Putnam 2 gives the following description of an implement 

 from Queensland, Australia, remarking in a foot note that it is proba- 

 ble that the specimen "was originally from New Guinea or some adja- 

 cent island:" 



This consists of a handle of hard wood three and a half feet long, one inch in di- 

 ameter at its largest end and tapering gradually to a sharp point. Two and a half 

 inches from the large end there is fastened a disk of hard dark-colored stone, four and 

 a half inches in diameter and three-quarters of an inch thick in the center, where it 

 has a straight perforation, and through this the handle passes. This stone is finely 

 polished and worked to a sharp or cutting edge, which has been slightly abraded by 

 live. The stone is prevented from slipping down the stick by three rings, apparently 

 made of split and braided bamboo. Above the stone is a similar ring, over which 

 and covering the stick for the whole space above the stone, is line braided work end- 

 ing in a tuft of bright colored feathers. 



'Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain, p. 193, 1872. 



*U. S. Geog. Surv. West of the 100th Meridian, Vol. VII, p. 14:;, Archasology, 1^79. 



